Season 3 - should have been the Romulans, not the Xindi?

[Cadet49]

I seriously don't understand why the powers that be of Enterprise didn't just cut the whole Xindi story arc, and have it be the Romulans attacking Earth in "The Expanse".

I always wish they had incorporated some of the elements of the back story in The Romulan Way novel, by Diane Duane, that early Earth vessels (would be nice tie in to Voyager to say it was a probe, like the Friendship One) passing through their star system in the late 21st/early 22nd century got the Romulans, who has largely become an insular secretive society in their home star system, suddenly concerned about other interstellar civilizations, and deciding to build an Empire before they could be conquered by someone else. By capturing early Earth warp drives, they gained warp drive. It would be an ironic twist, and could lead to why the Prime Directive was founded. If the writers had wanted to throw in the whole, "Temporal Cold War" angle, they could have had a Romulan from the future telling the Romulans to attack Earth, or something... though I would have rather seen that whole angle left out.

It would also be a better plotline explanation for a sudden attack on Earth than the Xindi attack, and the producers could have shown the Enterprise still trying to discover who had launched the mysterious attack on Earth, but it would be the Romulans...

... a missed opportunity, in my opinion.

 

[T'Girl]

so ... no Nazi's right?

 

[ChristopherPike]

Blame Star Trek Nemesis bombing at the box office, that's what I do.

Watching the series now, I can almost see Enterprise having planned to do Romulan War.

As early as Season Two, “Shockwave” and you’ve got Daniels nudging Archer’s hand away from a book on the race, while they’re both stranded in a devastated future. Telling him that maybe he shouldn’t be looking up details about the Star Empire.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPcJFY2iCto&feature=youtu.be[/yt]

Then I look at the timeline…

October 2002 – - -

“Minefield” and we see our first Romulan Bird of Prey.

November 2002 – - –

STAR TREK NEMESIS opens and we know how that went.

The Reman costumes get used for the Xindi-Reptillians throughout the Season Three.

Finally briefly seen back on the Remans in the Andorian/Romulan trilogy in Season Four.

Rick Berman moves the Romulan War to be a film pitch instead and brings in Erik Jendresen. The proposed Star Trek: The Beginning script.

I vaguely recall an interview with either of the showrunners, in which they state not being interested in doing Romulans and citing the obvious canon problems. But there ought to be ways around that. The race being seen from the audience's perspective only would've been different. While Earth and her allies initially confuse Remans as their attackers, or another enslaved races - not realising they're only pawns. Then there's the fact Vulcans and Romulans can easily be interchangable... humans not even aware their closest allies have been infiltrated.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Xindi were awesome aliens. Unique. Season 3 in Enterprise was the only time in all of Trek that I had no idea what was gonna happen next. I loved it.

The Romulans had been done to death AND in order to adhere to what "Balance of Terror" established about the war, said war would be dull as ditchwater. Want proof? Red the post-series Enterprise novels.

 

[ChristopherPike]

The Xindi were awesome aliens. Unique. Season 3 in Enterprise was the only time in all of Trek that I had no idea what was gonna happen next. I loved it.

In a lot of ways, I agree with that. Unpredictability is a good thing. The FX and make-up teams also did Star Trek proud with a mix of humanoid and more unusual species.

The Romulans had been done to death AND in order to adhere to what "Balance of Terror" established about the war, said war would be dull as ditchwater. Want proof? Read the post-series Enterprise novels.

Oh, I don't know. The books written by the duo of Mangels and Martin were a great start. Lately Martin by himself is bogged down with FASA (whatever that is) and canon references, which go beyond most of the audience watching the show - and me too, frankly. TV is different. Has a pool of writers on staff, bouncing ideas off each other and enthusing about stuff, working hard to make what isn't interesting better. Seems to me, Nemesis gave everybody cold feet and the sad part is, Romulans weren't even the main villains. Enterprise was a prequel and they could've dialed back the race, in the same way they did with the Vulcans and tried to do with the Klingons. Made them wilder and savage. More frenzied and emotional. Even religious for their Praetor or given them some anti-Surak figure to worship and die for. Or a warped version of his teachings. Making this show's depiction of Vulcans more sedate by comparison.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I'm one of those KingDaniel kinds of fans who prefers the third season over the fourth. (Although they're both pretty fantastic.) But I don't agree with him that the Romulan War would have had to have been boring. When the show was in its initial run I remember hoping we'd see some sort of time-skip to catch it up to the war. Lots of ideas ran through my mind.

Still need to read those books.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I love Season 3, but really the heart and soul of that season could've worked with an established bunch of Star Trek races. Even throw in that race from "Silent Enemy" as mercenaries in the Romulans' pay. Or make the Reptillian race, Saurians. Or show Aldebarons with their shell mouths or whatever. Archer losing his naivety and finding rigidly sticking to morality doesn't always work when faced an enemy who just think you're vermin to be exterminated. Trip losing family on Earth and collegues aboard the ship. T'Pol being infected or emotionally attacked during an assault by Remans or some other race being directed by the Romulans. Just throw in an unusual region of space they end up fighting in, which neutralises the more advanced abilities of technology and has them throwing nukes at each other and resorting to pulse weapons, which the MACOs still seemed to be using anyhow.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Sure, sounds perfectly fine. I'd dig it just as much if not moreso.

I was a frequent poster on the "Save Enterprise" forums back in those days and I remember a couple of people talking about how 'even if the show gets renewed next year, what are the odds it gets seven seasons? That's why the Xindi should be Romulans... because we're probably never getting that far with this show at this point.'

They were right.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Well, don't misunderstand me. Season 3 was really where the show came into its own. But yeah, getting TOS fan wank under the radar earlier would've helped. I don't really like that description but it's like an STD forums give you, that's convienient to use and even harder to shift. It's a bit like calling The Hobbit, Tolkien wank. Or The Clone Wars, Lucas wank. You can bet the next film will be full of a load of old TOS obviously.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Haha, I know what you mean. It sounds like such a negative phrase but sometimes it's a good thing. Or at least a useful thing if you're trying to keep your production afloat against all odds...

 

[F. King Daniel]

The thing about "fanwank" is that it can very easilly be done badly. Take Arik Soong's ultra cheesy lines about "Maybe... artifical life. It may take a few... Generations". Not only did I groan under the weight of the cheese, but casual fans are left feeling alienated. They know they're missing something but unless they've seen Next Gen they don't know what.
STXI, on the other hand, did an excellent job of packing in fannish references at every turn, without slowing up the story or confusing newbies one iota.

 

[T'Girl]

The Romulans had been done to death AND in order to adhere to what "Balance of Terror" established about the war, said war would be dull as ditchwater. Want proof? Red the post-series Enterprise novels.

KingDaniel, I agree with you (wow, where'd that come from) that the Romulans have been done to death. That said, a Romulan War series could be done in an interesting fashion. A few points.

The pathetically slow paced novels can be discounted.

Just because the characters never see the Romulans, doesn't mean the audience never sees them, or hears their side of the story. Entire episodes can be devoted to the Romulans.

Our heroes can interact with non-Romulan citizens of the Empire, second class citizens, allies, slave soldiers, mercenaries. Many of whom may have no idea what a Romulan looks like.

I've imagined the war to be somewhat protracted affair. A season on the show could cover two or three years of time. And not every episode has to involve combat, there would be oppertunrites for introspection, debate, ethical uncertainties. And character stories too.

If they had the correct writers. Hopefully they would avoid the dreadful darkness that drove away so many fans from DS9 and later seasons of Enterprise. Even war can have it light heart moments.

When the multiple season "war arc" end, there could be a transition into other adventures. If the audience will allow, no one knows. MASH was eleven seasons on a two year war.

 

[SFRabid]

Season three was about facing your enemy and changing his mind. To exchange Xindi for Romulans would have taken that away. We may not have gotten the same quality. We certainly would not get the same stories.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

so ... no Nazi's right?

They can have their Nazis with their comical Col. Klink accents as long as they give us Rommies too.

And the Rommies should have attacked Earth in S1, to spare us from all the Planet of the Week boredom.

The Xindi were awesome aliens. Unique.

Replace "awesome" with "boring" and "unique" with "rehashed," and I couldn't agree more.

ENT S3 was DS9 done by people who didn't have the first clue how to do DS9.

The Romulans had been done to death

The Romulans haven't been done to death. They haven't even been begun to be developed as real characters. Even in Trek XI, the Rommies had no particular identity as a species and Nero could have been any sort of alien. There was nothing specifically Romulan about him because even after all this time, the Romulans are undefined. That means they have yet to be ruined (hopefully they never will be) and have a great deal of unrealized potential to become great characters if developed with the same skill as shown in DS9's development of the Cardassians.

AND in order to adhere to what "Balance of Terror" established about the war, said war would be dull as ditchwater. Want proof? Red the post-series Enterprise novels.

All that means is that the post-ENT novels were written by incompetent writers (assuming your criticism is even valid).

 

[DarKush]

I agree with the OP. If I had my druthers the Romulans would've hired out the Orions to try to take out an Andorian or Tellarite agent, who had information to stop a Tellarite-Andorian War. Basically the Romulans were trying to play off these planets against each other, because they feared Earth, Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar.

I would've left out the Klingons. Perhaps brought in the Xindi or Suliban as subject races of the Romulans. If NEM limited what could be done-potentially-with the Remans during this period-there were no restrictions on using other races as footsoldiers or Romulan stand-ins. I wasn't the biggest fan of the Suliban but I thought they had a cool name, interesting powers, and decent technology. I liked the Xindi more and it would've been nice to see them incorporated into the Romulan Empire. One of Trek's great flaws is to have these great space empires that largely consist of one species.

I agree with the idea of Future Guy as Romulan if you had to do the Temporal Cold War. And I like the idea of a future Romulan trying to help his people out, especially in light of the events of the Abrams film. But of course that is all hindsight. However, I've long thought that even without the catastrophe on Romulus that it could make sense for a Romulan Future Guy who wanted to change history to ensure that the Romulans became dominant in the past.

 

[DarKush]

Season three was about facing your enemy and changing his mind. To exchange Xindi for Romulans would have taken that away. We may not have gotten the same quality. We certainly would not get the same stories.

I don't quite see it as Archer changing his mind IMO. He changed Degra's and some of the other Xindi. I do see it as Archer giving in to his inner demons at times during the season, his fears, having to face those, and having to learn how to reach out and trust Degra. However, I don't think he really changed his mind. He never altered his mission. He just changed tactics to achieve it. I think Trip fit more under the idea of changing his mind. He was harboring a lot of animus toward the Xindi that he had to let go.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Season three was about facing your enemy and changing his mind. To exchange Xindi for Romulans would have taken that away. We may not have gotten the same quality. We certainly would not get the same stories.

There is that. Although, the story could easily involve Archer befriending a Reman revolutionary of some sort, or another key player of a race enslaved within the Star Empire. Pick up a few hints about living in an equal society. They then live long enough to "see the stars of home" or whatever, cause unrest back on Romulus and the war switches a focus from being external to internal. The Romulans having relied on third parties for the bulk of the war, and with Earth forces softened up and virtually broken, begin a final assault in person. The stage involving ships painted with bird of prey on them. The oppressed turn on their oppressors at that critical moment. Reman Centurions revolt against the few Romulans aboard each ship. Simulataneously there's the beginning of a revolution within the Empire and it ends, with victorious conquest of Earth virtually in sight. Several key continents already bombarded from orbit. Romulans blame humanity forever more, having set up their own union - the Federation, while their founder hypocritically sowed the seeds to bring down their much older alliance. It doesn't happen and eventually the Remans, who lived side by side with Romulans on their homeworld since they colonised it, are banished back to Remus and treated even worse than before.

 

[SFRabid]

Season three was about facing your enemy and changing his mind. To exchange Xindi for Romulans would have taken that away. We may not have gotten the same quality. We certainly would not get the same stories.

I don't quite see it as Archer changing his mind IMO. He changed Degra's and some of the other Xindi. I do see it as Archer giving in to his inner demons at times during the season, his fears, having to face those, and having to learn how to reach out and trust Degra. However, I don't think he really changed his mind. He never altered his mission. He just changed tactics to achieve it. I think Trip fit more under the idea of changing his mind. He was harboring a lot of animus toward the Xindi that he had to let go.

By "his" i meant the enemy.

 

[F. King Daniel]

ENT S3 was DS9 done by people who didn't have the first clue how to do DS9.

Yes, they failed to include all that tedium that DS9 did so well

 

[SFRabid]

ENT S3 was DS9 done by people who didn't have the first clue how to do DS9.

Yes, they failed to include all that tedium that DS9 did so well

And the DS9 writers showed us Kai Winn and Gul Dukat in a bed together instead of Trip and T'Pol. Of course more people are going to watch Winn and Dukat together. What idiot writer/caster thought the public would rather see Trinneer and Blalock.